My friend Firegirl and I periodically discuss celebrity relationships we feel emotionally invested in—the ones where we would feel actual, genuine sadness in our hearts if the relationship dissolved, despite the fact that these are CELEBRITIES and we DO NOT IN FACT KNOW THEM. Here’s my list:

• Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith
• Heidi Klum and Seal
• Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy
• Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest
• Sting and Trudie Styler
• Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker
• Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward
• Rosie O’Donnell and Kelli Carpenter
• Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner
• Michael Bolton and Nicolette Sheridan
• Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani
• Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins
• Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell
• Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
• Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon
• Courtney Cox and David Arquette
• Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson

It’s hard to THINK of all the celebrity relationships, though. I added Heidi Klum and Seal JUST NOW, and yet they’re one of the couples I feel most strongly about—it’s just that they hadn’t yet come to mind when I was just thinking “celebrity couples.” We need some sort of directory of celebrity relationships so we can go through it systematically playing Sad / Not Sad. For example, I could give a flying frock if Jessica Simpson splits up with Tony Romo, or if Mario Lopez splits up with whatever girl he’s currently cheating on.

The one I think I would feel most upset about is Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith.

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Pay-it-forward updates:

Ms. Sassy Pants is showing the giftie she got, and starting a new contest.

Midwest Mom is showing the giftie she got, and starting a new contest.

Lorraine writes:

Here is the stuff that the lovely Fiona Picklebottom has gifted to me:

She pegged me right on the money because I am a total stationery addict. I love it all (AND I got to pick my own book too! What a great idea! It’s like a gift certificate and a surprise all in one!)

So my big thanks out to Fiona!

Now, I need to have my own Pay it Forward and I don’t have a site….can I borrow yours? I have a goody bag of Canadian tasties and some Pacific Northwest photo cards. Can we have a little contest?

Indeed! (And I will never be able to say that word again without thinking of Omar on the TV series The Wire.) Leave a comment on this post to enter Lorraine’s contest. It can be any comment, but if you need something to say you can say what the weather’s doing right now where you are. Contest will run through Saturday, August 23rd, noon U.S. Pacific time.

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Other pay-it-forward updates:

Teacher Mom is showing the giftie she got.

Elizabeth and I are up pretty early this morning. I’m still having trouble sleeping, and my new radical plan is—wait for it—to get up and go to bed at a consistent time each day. Wake-up time is going to be the time Paul gets up for work, also known as “Dumpster-slam JAM!” in our neighborhood (5:30).

So this explains why I am sitting here with my under-eye bags perched on my cheek-tops, drinking instant orange-flavored cappuccino (predominant flavor still “instant coffee”) and feeling sullen. It does NOT explain why ELIZABETH is up, walking up and down the stairs and singing TMBG’s Never Go to Work. Elizabeth doesn’t like to miss out on any action, so she’s got some sort of monitoring device on me that woke her up just as I sat down with my mug, thinking, “Well, it’ll be fun to play on the computer for awhile, anyway.”

Er, not that every moment with her isn’t a treasure and a joy. But at 5:30 a.m. I’m scheduled to be treasuring the beauty of her eyelashes on her rosy sleeping cheek, not the glory of her piping little voice full of ideas for my time.

I’m feeling more optimistic about the dining room floor. I’d been overwhelmed by too many choices, ranging from $1 a square foot to “why not just forget about your kids’ education and have a nice floor instead?” a square foot. It was too much to consider. I don’t feel happy until the options start narrowing. To make a wall comparison, I’m unhappy in the “Wallpaper, paint, paneling, beadboard, hay?” stage. I feel a little better but still stressed in the “Okay, I’ve decided, it’s paint! But what COLOR?” stage. I don’t perk up until I’m at the “Okay, PINK! Now which SHADE?” stage.

With the dining room floor, the first significant narrowing occurred when I chose fake wood rather than fake stone or fake tile or real wood or real stone or real tile. The second narrowing occurred when I read the August issue of Consumer Reports, and they love Armstrong laminate. And so I love Armstrong laminate, and the only thing to decide now is which kind of wood will it be pretending to be?

Feel free to weigh in! You know, as long as you remember that I am TIRED, and on a HAIR-TRIGGER with stress over this floor thing, and also that I chose those five from a pool of thousands and thousands and so clearly I LIKE them and the only issue is which one is BEST. So no “That looks like my cat barfed and then spread it out in a thin layer to maximize the Bare Foot Contact Zone”-type thing.

If you need to visualize, the dining room borders only the kitchen, which currently has actual bona fide linoleum (it dents! and has asbestos under it! and is supposed to be regularly WAXED!)

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Pay-it-forward updates:

My Life is starting a new contest.

Alice’s Wonderland is showing the giftie she got (she’s got a loop!).

I was so interested to read all the answers to yesterday’s We Don’t Know What They Mean personality tests. What I found most interesting was the way it was sometimes so easy to see both sides of the issue equally clearly. Like, with the candy question for example, why would anyone force themselves to eat candy they don’t even like?? That’s CRAZY! What a waste of calories/candy! But on the other hand, how could someone go through and pick out their own favorites, leaving the unbalanced proportions for everyone else, shrugging and saying, “I don’t eat what I don’t like”? That’s AWFUL! That’s so inconsiderate!

Candy assortments drive me crazy with their sweet “have it all!” promises and their “but never quite the way you want it!” follow-ups. I think the answer to that one is that people shouldn’t try to share candy assortments unless they’ve already established that they’re compatible assortment-sharers. In most cases, it’s better for people to buy their own assortments and share the leftovers: there’s a huge difference between “Hey, who left nothing but the Special Darks and Mr. Goodbars???” and “Hey, does anyone want my extra Special Darks and Mr. Goodbars?” This is why it’s so important to marry well. I like the pink, purple, and white jellybeans, and Paul likes the green, orange, yellow, and black jellybeans, and we agree to throw out the red ones. Happiness!

(I don’t know what the answers to any of these MEAN. They just seem like they mean SOMETHING.)

If there’s a bag of mixed candy, do you eat only the kinds you like, leaving the others? Or do you make yourself eat all the kinds?

(I don’t know what the answers to any of these MEAN. They just seem like they mean SOMETHING.)

My mom and I each got a free sample of one of those incredibly expensive little Philosophy face serum pods. My mom used hers at the next possible opportunity. I still have mine (it’s been a month), saving it for a special occasion.

Do you use special stuff right away, or do you hoard it? If you hoard, do you hoard until it’s no longer special, or do you just hoard until the next good opportunity?

(I don’t know what the answers to any of these MEAN. They just seem like they mean SOMETHING.)

When you’re just moving the car to a new place in the driveway or if you’re just moving it out of the driveway to the yard (that is, you’re not driving it on the road), do you wear your seatbelt?

(I don’t know what the answers to any of these MEAN. They just seem like they mean SOMETHING.)

Honestly, truly, think about it carefully: Which would you be happier hearing: “Oh, you’re so pretty!” or “Oh, you’re so smart!”

We’re taught carefully that (1) appearance is of utmost importance and also that (2) appearance is of no importance, so this is a question that SEEMS like it has a “right” answer—but I don’t think it does, I think it’s just a matter of which you’d prefer hearing.

I’ve read that people who will leave a bad movie in the middle (cutting their losses) are happier and more successful than people who won’t (trying to get their money’s worth). Which kind are you?

[Edit: Okay, I totally screwed this up. I accidentally posted all five personality tests, then noticed my mistake and took out four. But it’s showing up in feed readers with all five, so some people are answering all five. So if you see someone answering five, they are not crazy! I am careless!]

Pardon me, if I could just remind you that there is only one week left to be in on the secret that everyone except Jess Loolu may know about? The secret would benefit from more participants, and there is no reason the participants must personally know Jess in order to participate, so don’t be shy! It’s the FREE kind of secret—no one’s going to be asking you to chip in for a time-share or anything. Unless you’re Jess Loolu, click here to read more, or just email me (swistle at gmail dot com) to find out more. I can hardly believe it, but NONE of my family or real-life peeps have emailed. Not one! Not that I’m noticing who emails or not, or giving out secret mental points or anything.

I haven’t been around as much lately, and I’m embarrassed to even tell you why. It’s a bunch of little hobbies, all of which I seem to have made into minor (let’s just say minor) obsessions.

1) Postcrossing, which I already mentioned and am still panting for. You can only have five postcards traveling at a time, and so every day I’m checking email every 5 minutes to see if any of my postcards have arrived yet so I can send another one.

2) This one is the most embarrassing, so I’m going to get it out of the way fast rather than leaving it for last. I’ve been, um. Fluffracing. On Facebook. I have the Fluff Friends application, and you can, um, race them against each other. And I’ve been doing that. A lot. So that the application informs me that my Fluff Friend is tired and needs to rest before he can race again. It’s a FLUFFGAMBLING problem!

3) The secret mentioned in the first paragraph, which has been really fun to work on and continues to be fun to work on.

4) Etsy, which has been blowing my mind recently. I found it overwhelming for awhile, and I still do (I don’t like that if I type in “lunch box” I get a bunch of hits that have nothing to do with lunch boxes or lunches or boxes), but it works so much better when I’m looking for something for a post and can get caught up in all the great stuff. I keep adding stuff to my cart—there are like 50 items in there right now.

5) Twitter, which is more fun than I’d expected. If you’re like, “But I don’t GET it. What’s it FOR?”—trust me, you are not alone. The good news is that “lack of understanding” is a treatable problem: the treatment is to sign up and see if it makes sense. Or at least, that’s what I finally did: I figured that if I didn’t like it, there was no reason I couldn’t UNsign up.

6) Making fudge. I can’t understand it, but batch after batch is coming out screwy. I even threw out my candy thermometer and got a brand new one, and still the fudge is coming out wrong. Well, maybe “wrong” is the wrong word. I like fudge to have a grain to it, a melty dissolvey grain. I don’t like fudge to be smooth and creamy. But it keeps coming out smooth and creamy, no matter what I do. The only thing I can think of is that I’ve been using a new bottle of corn syrup, but that’s only 1 teaspoon per batch, and also, what could be wrong with corn syrup? Anyway, I’m getting a little compulsive about this, making batch! after! batch! because it HAS to come out right, what is WRONG with it???

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Pay-it-forward updates:

Astarte is showing the giftie she got and starting a new contest (it involves cheezy early-’90s music, although how anyone can deny that Mmmm-Bop is anything less than MUSICAL GENIUS is beyond my ken).

Living in Maryland is showing the giftie she got and starting a new contest.